Life of Pi – movie review

“Life of Pi” a movie (at first a novel by Yann Martel) about myth, religion on the one hand and the power of reason on the other hand. The message: sometimes we do need myths, religions, believe in a God, if we need much courage and resilience to overcome bad conditions; on the other hand: step by step human intelligence, use of reason will be the best strategy. Using the fiction of a shipwrecked survivor, together with a tiger in a rescue boat, the audience can follow with all related emotions those typical challenges, often described in myths, bibles etc.: Jonah in the whale, Odysseus, Titanic disaster, Robinson Crusoe: the script is a compendium of quotations, walking through history and ballads, composed knowing the long line of human culture in several continents and centuries. Do not dream too much, don’t get lost in too much optimism, leaving the cinema! My blog follower Rita Banerji in Calcutta told me, that the victim of the New Delhi gang rape in December 2012 just came from consuming this movie – and then entered without any argue the bus of those idiots. But the Bollywood movie is not really guilty for that failed reality check. At the end of the film (when the insurance sends two persons, to make an interview, trying to bring a light in the drama) the cinema audience gets the hint, that in every human being is a hidden cruelty. Do you remember the plane which crashed into the Andes? Those, who survived, had eaten other passengers. Even the pope agreed, that sometimes we do not have an other choice. The history of mankind, the history of struggles and failures is long. This movie maybe will become a metaphorical evergreen fragment like the myth of Sisyphus (Albert Camus was mentioned in this cinema product)…

There are many conditions, we call flaws, in life. We though, have to deal with the biggest, the human condition, which gives us a foundation in which to analysize things. For me, Life of Pi reiterated that. Very thoughtful post.

I didn’t see the film when it came out mainly because I had no clue what it was about besides a boy in a boat with a tiger.

It’s interesting that you brought up the story of the plane that crashed in the Andes. Just the other day I was talking to my sister and somehow the subject of the Donner Party came up. It’s a similar story of cannibalism among a group that was trying to cross the Rockies in the nineteenth centrury. Here’s a link to a video.

I was fascinated by a book I read a few years ago entitled “The Island of the Lost,” about two shipwrecks that occured close together on Aukland Island in far south of the Pacific. Most of the survivors of one ship die while all the people on board the other boat survive. It’s a fascinating story. One of the survivors of the more fortunate boat (fortunate being quite relative in this case) wrote a book about how they survived. It’s in French. I’d like to track down a copy and read it one day.

I haven’t watched the film yet because I have yet to read the book. But I’m really tempted now reading your post. I think we are all searching for some meaning in our lives. I believe in our modern, westernized societies we have increasingly felt lost without a sense of culture, hence the popularity of superhero and vampire movies – it allows us the sense of mythology.

Super excellent thoughts on this movie. I had been intersted in seeing it but haven’t as of yet. Sometimes, I hesitate to see a movie if it is advertised too much. I feel they are not confident that it is good. I am looking forward to seeing it now. Thanks for the review, Frizz.

I really loved this movie. It is the kind of movie I love to watch, the ones where the main character goes through a double journey: one is to move from the place where he or she was born, and the other, for me the real journey, is an internal journey that leads the person to grow spiritually. Generally both are intrinsically bonded.

“…a double journey:
1
one is to move from the place where he or she was born,
2
and the other, for me the real journey, is an
internal journey that leads the person to grow spiritually…”
+
frizz:
1
from West Germany to East Germany – or:
from Germany to New York;
2
from angst to courage –
from Struwwelpeter to Adorno

I finally got to watch the film after I saw your review. I can see how one can embark on much philosophical reflection of many matters after this. Or even a theological journey, as the movie has been dotted so much with.

What I could not understand was how/why the book almost did not get published. It kept getting turned down before it was finally taken up by a wiser publisher.